Royal Holloway's Independent Student Newspaper

Petition to improve Royal Holloway’s Health Centre gathers huge support

By Rosa Smith, News Editor

An online petition to improve Royal Holloway’s Health Centre has gained over a thousand signatures, with many students sharing their bad experience of the university’s health care.

The petition, which will be delivered to Royal Holloway’s Principle, Paul Layzell, calls for a number of improvements to be made, including the response time when calls to the surgery are made, the lack of sympathy from some receptionists, being refused an appointment if you do not feel comfortable telling the receptionist what the appointment is for, and having only five doctors and one nurse to cover over 9,000 students.

The petition was started by psychology student Phoebe Dormand who states on her petition that ‘After speaking to many students about how the university surgery has failed them, as well as writing a formal complaint that was ignored by the surgery, I felt it was time to try to take further action.’

The treatment of mental health issues has also been identified has an area where the Health Centre needs to improve, with many students coming forward to reveal they don’t feel as if they have been taken seriously by all members of staff.